


here's looking at you (the kids are alright)

by therestisdetail



Category: Football RPF
Genre: 'requited' is a relative term, Gen, M/M, baby barca dream team, i wrote this so long ago it feels like someone else did, the kids will be alright, you never have friends like the friends you had when you were twelve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-21
Updated: 2012-07-21
Packaged: 2017-11-10 09:55:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therestisdetail/pseuds/therestisdetail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Yeah. Hey, I knew you'd get it, Leo. I knew."</p><p>No I don't, Leo wants to say, I don't understand at all. Waiting isn't really waiting, not when you can still play. He doesn't say it, though. Because he knows the response by now, knows the looks. Like he's lying, or worse, like he isn't; stretched patience, as if he's that one kid who still believes in fairy tales.</p><p>(Cesc, Gerard and Leo, from La Masia to England and back to Barcelona.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	here's looking at you (the kids are alright)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littleredcup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleredcup/gifts).



  
It's the year Leo will play in five teams, five different divisions, though he doesn't know it yet. He'll score in Juvenil A and Tercera Division and it will feel the same, and in Segunda Division B he won't, but he'll taste first team debut. Then they'll move him back down again, take him aside and tell him in low voices, like he's supposed to mind or something.  
  
Gerard makes a huge fuss that he's back. They see each other every day anyway, and Leo tells him so, and Gerard declares him a heartless wench. Cesc doesn't think Gerard even knows what wench means, and they end up wrestling over it while Leo eats breakfast.  
  
On tuesday they do endurance work, and end with a game of five-a-side. Leo scores three times.  
  
  
*  
  
  
On thursday they play again, and by then Leo isn't sending his crosses just that little too far or too short, has his head around size of these boys again, their fit. He wears it well, drops back to compete with Cesc in the midfield, is a little faster, a little quicker on the turn. It's familiar.  And Cesc, who wears his heart on his sleeve  (wears it on the inside of his boot) and who forgets quickly when Leo isn't there, expresses his frustration. Hard. That's familiar, too.     
  
Leo makes sure he's the last to walk over and grab his water bottle after training. His ankle hurts like hell but in the right kind of way, the way that gets better rather than worse if you just let it be, and it's fine. Everyone gets frustrated. When he gets there he fills his mouth up and then pours the rest on Cesc's head.  
  
"What the fuck, man" Cesc yelps, glaring. "What the hell?" Leo blinks, ignores the protests until Cesc realises no one is going to back him up on this and deflates. "Fuck you, then." Cesc says, finally. "I was going to say sorry anyway. Asshole."  
  
"I missed you too," Leo says sweetly, and gets an off-centre smile and a slap around the back of the head.  
  
They're ok.  
  
  
*  
  
  
"I'm leaving."  
  
"I know," says Leo, because Geri told him already. Because you'd have to be wilfully blind and deaf not to realise, after the past few days.  
  
Cesc walks over and sits next to him on the bed. "I'm not - I'm not sorry.  With Andres, now, I'll be waiting forever. And I'm too good to wait that long." He waits a while, then frowns. "Jesus, Leo, is that it? That's all you're going to say?"  
  
Leo looks at his sleeve. "Arsenal are smart," he says, eventually.  
  
Cesc laughs, loud and cut-off. "Not even going to yell? You should have heard-"  
  
"You're smart too," Leo adds suddenly, and Cesc lets the forced smile drop.  
  
"Yeah. Hey, I knew you'd get it, Leo. I knew."  
  
No I don't, Leo wants to say, I don't understand at all. Waiting isn't really waiting, not when you can still play. He doesn't say it, though. He knows the response by now, knows the looks. Like he's lying, or worse, like he isn't; stretched patience, as if he's that one kid who still believes in fairy tales.  
  
"Leo," Cesc says, and he's being weird and over-careful with each word. "I'm leaving. And I. I wanted to ask."  
  
Leo thinks, oh.  
  
  
*  
  
  
There are a lot of knees, mostly, in the wrong places, and colliding elbows making their own bids to be noticed. Cesc has no idea what he's doing but that's ok, neither does Leo. He's sort of got it, if he keeps it broken down to its pieces (tongue on lips, legs sliding, counting ribs, heartbeat against his back) worked out, and he's half hard. And maybe Cesc's fingers are cold, then, and maybe it hurts, fine, ok, but this is Cesc and being near him is - it's never bad. It's Cesc.  
  
"This is," he says in Leo's ear, then. "Oh my god. Can I. Can I, please."  
  
"Please," Leo echoes back, shifting to allow him to press in, and wonders if he's supposed to say anything else. It's harder to concentrate on the pieces now and he wishes Cesc would slow down, although in between jerky swearing he's making these soft little noises, and they seem like a good thing, Leo wants him to do that. So.  
  
He touches himself so that Cesc won't; in that sense, it works. They never get into enough of a rhythm for it to be a surprise when Cesc comes, shaking slightly.  "Fuck, man, that was. Fuck. Oh god," he's talking almost the second he slumps against his back and Leo's impatient and uncomfortable enough to stretch out, shifting him at least partially off. Cesc laughs a little, so Leo tugs his hair, makes him smile more.     
  
"Hey, did- " Cesc starts, and pauses. "Leo, did you-" his hand moves up the inside of Leo's leg and Leo is quick enough to grab it, hold it, but not quick enough for the silence to not be an answer. He hates that he hasn't the right  words, hates that he hasn't got the right answer. Cesc is quiet too. After a few moments he rolls onto his side with his back to Leo, far enough not to touch, but he doesn't pull his hand away and he stays until morning.    
  
  
*  
  
  
Gerard goes with Cesc to the airport when he leaves, and so do his parents. They're family in a way Leo isn't. Cesc hugs him, though, when he helps put the bags in the car. Hugs him tight and tousles his hair, because Leo lets him, always lets him.  
  
Cesc doesn't tell Gerard.  
  
Leo takes his cue from that, and in the end it's easier than he thought, not to tell. To pack it away somewhere safe, as if a caretaker, as if the memory doesn't really belong to him.    
  
Then Gerard gets an offer from Manchester.  
  
Gerard gets an offer, and Leo gets a late night call from England, Cesc's too-loud voice on the other end and a bad connection.  
  
"I know- " and then nothing, for a while. Leo presses the phone against his ear. "- shit, let me, is this better? Ok.  Leo, he told me he's coming here. He s-" a small crack, then "-ns with them soon? It's just, it's different over here.  I'm - it's different. And I know we weren't going to talk about it. But I think- " Another drop out, then clarity. "I need you to do something for me, Leo."  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
Leo doesn't know what's going to happen. In the immediate sense, he has a vague idea that Gerard might hit him, figures it will hurt. Gerard's pretty big these days. But he doesn't know what's going to happen after that, the bits that are actually important.  
  
Gerard is sitting on his bed.  
  
"Come to help me pack? A bit overeager. I'll start thinking you want me gone." He says lightly, then; "Leo?"  
  
It's kind of ironic. Leo doesn't even have the words for himself, most of the time, let alone to speak for someone else.  
  
So he leaves out the part where Cesc said things like "I need to know" and "you trust me, right?", leaves out the part where they didn't know what they were doing, where they made it up as they went along and how sometimes it hurt. He just says that it happened, that it was once. He uses "we fucked" instead of anything else, because even though it's ugly and it's harsh, it doesn't put any meaning to it that Leo is sure he has no right to put there.    
  
"This isn't funny," Gerard says, and "Leo, stop it," and "What the fuck are you saying?"  
  
"So is Cesc- is he- " Gerard asks eventually, not needing to finish, and Leo tells him he doesn't know. Then, as an afterthought, "are you?"  
  
"No," Leo says, the first time out loud, and he supposes he knew that all along. "I'm not. Would you mind if I was?"  
  
Gerard ignores him, moves around the room with a blank expression but a violent kind of energy, like he can't keep his anger inside his skin. "And he couldn't tell me this? He couldn't tell me before he left, or picked up the damn phone to make a call? In all this time, he couldn't-"  
  
"It was as much me as him." Leo interrupts, and Gerard looks angry, really angry at him, for the first time.  
  
"Don't fucking talk to me like I'm just anyone." He says. "Don't you fucking dare, as if I don't know you. This is me, Leo. And I know that's bullshit. And even if it wasn't-" he stops short, sits on his bed.  
  
"He's never kept a secret from me." Anyone else, and Leo would laugh at that. But this is Gerard, this is Cesc. "I should have known before you." And there it is, the heart of the matter. Something Leo has no way of fixing. Gerard stares at the ground, grabs the nearest book and hurls it hard enough across the room that it breaks the spine. "Fuck!"  
  
"I'm sorry," Leo mumbles, because he doesn't have anything better to offer.      
  
  
  
*  
  
  
Rijkaard makes a place for him and he's grateful, plays until he thinks his heart might burst, and it never feels any less than it did the first game. His teammates are bigger than life, in his eyes. They're kind, mostly, or ignore him, and that's ok too. They think he hides away to be alone, and often he does. Other times, he's lying back in his bed with his feet hooked over the headboard listening to another half-true anecdote about Sir Alex Ferguson's unique man-management techniques.  
  
"- I swear to god, right there in the locker room he made him empty out the whole lot on the floor. In front of everyone. His face." Gerard starts laughing before he finishes, and Leo laughs along with him.  
  
"Has Cesc heard this one?" Leo asks casually, then scrunches up his face in anticipation of the response, glad Gerard can't see it.  
  
"God, Leo. I'm not going to fucking call him," Gerard snaps down the phone, and Leo bangs his head against the wall, but not loud enough for him to hear. "He can call me. Why do you act like I'm the one who should apologise?"  
  
"I never said anything about apologising," Leo groans, but he's fighting a losing battle and knows it. "Just. Think about it."  
  
Gerard makes a noncommital sound, then tells Leo he'll call him again later in the week. Leo hangs up and looks at the phone for a while. A small red light blinks curiously at him.    
  
He presses five on his speed dial, waits.  
  
"You should call Gerard, " he starts, because at some point that became his way of saying _hey, this is Leo_. Cesc takes it with better grace than Gerard, anyway.  
  
"Why yes, I'm great, thanks for asking. How are you?"  
  
"Ok," Leo says, "ok," when what he means is the same. In all the real ways, Leo is just the same, Barcelona is just the same.  
  
Then he leans back to listen to Cesc talk about red and white and fans screaming his name, listen to him complain about english food, mock the awestruck way he talks about his teammates. He listens and he waits, and it's ok.     
      
  
*  
  
  
Gerard comes back to Barcelona, and a piece of Leo slots back in to place, starts working again. He's gotten good at making do, but it's nice. More than nice.  They play around in training, bicker, tussle. Revive old in-jokes, as much because it annoys the others as anything else. They connect easily, years falling away, nothing to them. Of course, that doesn't mean they don't have to relearn each other, testing the new limits of pace and control, but that's enjoyable in itself, exciting.    
  
Gerard tackles harder than he used to. That's nice too. Leo could always tell when he was holding back.  
  
They only mention the - Leo's not even sure what to call it, or if it really involved him at all, in the end, because it took a while but they sorted it out between the two of them like he knew they would - they only mention it once.  
  
"Cesc's a stubborn fucker," Gerard says, out of nowhere while driving Leo home. But Leo knows.    
  
"Almost twelve months," Leo doesn't look up from his magazine. "Both of you are stubborn fuckers."  
  
"Yeah," Gerard agrees. "But that's not the worst of why he's stubborn." He's glancing across at Leo like he's trying to memorise all the details of him, all the bits, and Leo's not sure what that means. "Though I think I get it. Yeah, I get it. He doesn't even wanna get over it."  
  
"Geri-"  
  
"What are you reading?" Gerard says, and that's it, subject changed. But Leo feels sixteen years old again,  a guilty weight in his chest that he can't shift.  
  
  
*  
  
  
Pique does something very stupid and so very Gerard when celebrating the World Cup, and the media implode.  Or at least, that's all Leo can be bothered to take from it. He doesn't like how Cesc has had to become so good at putting out these kind of fires.  
  
"It wasn't funny," he tells Gerard, but he's never been any good at being stern. Gerard tells him that when Cesc is at Barca, it will be funny. He never says if. Leo tells him to learn to wait.  
  
Leo doesn't get to talk to Cesc often, so when he does he doesn't bring it up. Sometimes Cesc does, though, tells Leo that he means the things he says, doesn't just say them because it's what the crowds in red and white want to hear. Says that he's sick, though, of having to explain himself, that 'never' is too heavy for anyone.  
  
"Ok," Leo says, and leaves it at that.    
  
"Sometimes I think you wouldn't want me back anyway," Cesc adds once, and rubs his hair self-consciously. It takes Leo a moment to realise that when he says you he's not talking about Leo, not about a person. He's talking about Barcelona, about home.  Either way Leo thinks Cesc is wrong. No. Knows it.  
  
"It's not like that," Leo says. Cesc pulls a face.  
  
"Not for you," he says, and then pokes him in the arm. "Did you ever think less of me?"  
  
"No." Football doesn't work like that; anyway, Leo doesn't work like that.  
  
"But you never would have. I mean, not anywhere else."  
  
Leo thinks about it. Tries to imagine having to fight for a place on the first team, really fight, thinks about Argentina. "No. But it's different."  
  
"Because you're a fucking genius." Cesc offers, grinning. Proud, like it's something that belongs a bit to him.  
  
Leo ducks his head, like he always does, then shakes it. "No." He almost stops there, but this is Cesc. "Because I thought, for a long time, I'd never grow. Not like a - I'd never be like a normal person. And I cried a lot, but I thought I could be ok so long as I still had football.  And then there was Barca. And they let me have both."  
  
  
*  
  
  
Cesc steps out on to the pitch in blaugrana, to the roar of the crowd and a breathless sense of narrative; this is Real Madrid, this is the Super Cup, this is Barca. It's the kind of debut that makes him look at Pep, serene on the sideline, and wonder how he copes.  
  
Six minutes later the ball is at Leo's feet, and he can feel exactly where it needs to go. The stadium explodes, and he shouts along with it, finds Cesc without having to look, throws his arms out. The look on Cesc's face hasn't changed in all these years, and Leo's just glad to see it again, feel this together again. He wants to shout at Cesc, wants to shake him. Wants to give him everything. Everything he has, anyway, which is _this_ , and he thinks that now maybe it will be enough.  
  
"Sorry-" Cesc yells in his ear. "- that I kept you waiting." Leo digs his fingers into Cesc's shirt, smiles.  
  
"It's ok," He says, not sure if Cesc can hear him over the noise of the crowd. The waiting was always ok.  
  
Cesc steps out on the pitch in blaugrana, and things in Leo he had forgotten about work again, everything works. It's been a long time coming.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Actual True Things: 1. They were inseparable at La Masia, 2. Cesc and Gerard have mentioned in interviews they had a fight and didn't talk to each other for a year while they were both in England, 3. Post-World Cup Gerard put a Barca jersey on Cesc when he was still captain of Arsenal and the media went cuckoo, 4. His first game back at Barcelona Cesc was subbed on and assisted a Messi goal against Real Madrid.


End file.
